Disclaimer: I do not and never did own Yu-Gi-Oh!

"I wanna cry because I'm blue

But I can't cry like others do

I'd feel much better and I'd try

Somebody, teach me how to cry

~Teach Me How to Cry, Ella Fitzgerald

Chapter 15

Seto was starting to become distracted at work again and it couldn't have happened at a more inopportune moment. Though the tournament preparations were running smoothly, he was now facing a lawsuit over a worker who had gotten hurt on one of the rides at Kaiba Land. Kaiba Corp had faced its share of lawsuits over the years both under his step-father and him, and they had barely caused a hiccup in the company's workings, but this had come at a time when stock was still dangerously low which made him nervous. With the public's faith in their virtual technology ebbing, the promise of Kaiba Land had been more or less keeping them afloat. The last thing he needed was for this story to cause a splash in the media which meant it had to be dealt with quickly which meant more meetings with more lawyers, more underhanded deals to smooth things over, and even more overtime for Seto.

Normally he only very reluctantly took time off of work, and then only for his brother's birthday or for dueling tournaments, or his own birthday, but only because Trudy insisted and he knew she'd only make a cake if he stayed home. This year however, he viewed the day off as the only light in a storm of stress, black coffee, and migraines.

"What does he do for his birthday usually?" Alistair asked Mokuba curiously as the two of them raced towards the finish line in one of Mokuba's games.

"Seto?" Mokuba asked, confused by the out of the blue question. "Nothing really. Trudy makes him a cake and we eat it and then he either sleeps all day or swims or reads something…dunno. Just relaxes basically, and sometimes we go out for dinner, why?"

"I was just curious." Alistair pulled ahead, just managing to beat Mokuba. While the victory music played he added: "so you don't get him anything?"

"Like a present?" Mokuba shook his head. "I haven't gotten him anything in years. I mean, there's nothing that we could get each other that we couldn't get for ourselves so it's sort of pointless."

"So he doesn't get you anything either?"

"Oh sure. Not a present though, usually it's a trip somewhere. Last year, even though he was really busy, he took a weekend off to take me to Maui. This year obviously we had to take care of Dartz and you guys so we didn't have time, but it wasn't a big deal or anything." He hesitated. "Did you and your brother celebrate your birthdays?" Alistair frowned. Mikey had never had a chance to have a real birthday and he himself had had only a few that he actually remembered.

"No, not really." Mokuba's eyebrows contracted in concern.

"When is your birthday Alistair?"

"November seventeenth," he answered absently.

"We'll definitely have to celebrate," Mokuba said determinately. "Trudy will bake a cake, we'll have presents, it'll be fun!"

"I might not even be living here anymore by then. I get my license on the eleventh."

"No one's going to kick you out you know. It's not like you have to leave just because you have your license. Or did Seto say something about it?"

"Well…no, but I wouldn't want to overstay my welcome. Besides, once I have a job I should probably get my own place and start trying to be a productive member of society."

"Do you want to leave?" Mokuba tried his best not to let his dismay show on his face. He had become so accustomed to having Alistair around that he couldn't imagine him leaving. "Do you not like it here?"

"I…" Alistair was shocked to hear the sadness in Mokuba's voice. He hadn't realized that the kid had become so attached to him. "I do really like it here," he admitted. "It's not that…"

"Why do you have to leave then?"

"I'm freeloading here Mokuba, I don't like that."

"But you're going to have a job. If you really wanted to you could pay rent or something. You'll even be working for Kaiba Corp!"

"See that's the thing. I don't want to work for Kaiba Corp."

"Wait, what? Why?" Alistair couldn't think of a delicate way to explain.

"I may not be out for revenge or anything anymore, but I still don't like what Kaiba Corp stands for, I don't like your brother's business practices, and I'd rather work for someone whose cause I believe in." Mokuba's face fell.

"What do you mean my brother's business practices?" he asked, slightly defensively.

"Well, he pays people off for one thing. There was an environmental group that objected to him building the stadium for the Grand Championship tournament as a permanent structure when it would just sit there and fall into disrepair after the tournament was over and instead of realizing that they had a point and changing the design, he paid them off."

"Yeah, but think of it this way: obviously they weren't that dedicated or they wouldn't have let themselves be bought off, right?" Alistair goggled at him.

"How can you say that? Just because the people running the organization turned out to be corrupt doesn't mean they didn't have a valid point."

"I guess…" Mokuba looked uncertain.

"And then there's the matter of Kaiba Corp's business partners. You do realize that almost all the parts for your computer's, duel disks, arenas, etc. are made by people who get locked into factories and have to work over ten hour shifts, right?"

"Sort of." Mokuba looked uncomfortable. "But I mean, having a job, any job, is better than no job at all, right? And it's not like if we got our stuff from somewhere else those people would be getting more money or better hours."

"That's exactly it though. It's big companies like Kaiba Corp supporting that type of business practice financially if nothing else, that allows them to exist. If Kaiba Corp threatened to withdraw its support, that might actually get some changes made." Mokuba was starting to think that he was out of his depth. He'd never thought much about things like that except when Seto brought them up, and he'd always taken for granted that Seto knew what he was talking about, but what Alistair was saying was forcing him to question that.

"Look, I'm not saying that Kaiba is purposefully trying to screw people over, he's probably just never thought about it. A business is all about the numbers, and it's way cheaper to buy from providers who pay their workers fuck-all than to buy from a company that doesn't, so from his perspective, Kaiba's actually doing Kaiba Corp a great service."

"I don't know much about it to be honest…"

"You're the vice president," Alistair pointed out exasperatedly.

"I know, but I'm mostly in charge of management at Kaiba Land, not development or financing or anything like that."

"Still, don't you think you should know where KC is getting its equipment from?"

"Probably," Mokuba admitted, properly chastised.

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to make you feel bad, I just wanted you to understand why I don't want to work for your brother."

"What if you talked to him?" Mokuba asked hopefully. "Like you said: he probably doesn't know…" Alistair smiled kindly.

"I don't think your brother would want to talk about his policies with me."

"No, you're probably right…"

As he was talking Alistair realized the truth behind his own words. Much as he wished that he could stay at the mansion, and much as he was now coming to like Kaiba, it wouldn't make sense. He had no interest in working for him because his morals were as resolute as Kaiba's business practices and therefore he would feel weird about living at his house even if he paid rent, and he wasn't sure Kaiba would even let him.

He and Mokuba smiled sadly at each other for a moment before Mokuba sprung forward and hugged him.

"I really wish you didn't have to go," he said, squeezing tightly. Alistair tensed momentarily before softening and hugging Mokuba back.

"It's not like I'm going to go very far," he reasoned.

"You don't know that," Mokuba said pitifully, pulling back. "If you aren't working for my brother you'll have to find a job somewhere else and that might not even be in Domino."

"I like to think that if you really cared you'd come visit anyway seeing as money is no object," Alistair replied, trying to make Mokuba laugh. His words had the desired effect.

"That's true. But then make sure you move somewhere cool like New York or Bali."

"Deal." Though the truth was that Alistair was starting to seriously consider returning to his homeland at long last to help in the evacuation effort.

Given that he knew he wouldn't be sticking around much longer, Alistair internally vowed to make his last few weeks with the Kaibas count.

By the time the evening of the twenty-fourth, the day before Kaiba's birthday, rolled around, Alistair had decided to throw caution to the winds and jump Kaiba once he got home from work. Darren had been the mastermind behind the plan after Alistair confessed to him that he wanted closure to his relationship with the man he was living with before he left so that there would be no turning back, no regrets.

When he heard Kaiba pulling into the garage at around one-fifteen, he crept down the hall and leaned against the banister at the top of the side staircase to the garage so that Kaiba couldn't possibly miss him when he walked in the door.

Because he knew that he would be taking the next day off, Seto had worked even harder than usual if that was even humanely possible, and powered through three intimidating stacks of forms, talked to the heads of PR and marketing about how best to announce the invitations to the tournament, agreed to a settlement with the injured worker's family to effectively keep the matter out of court and out of the press, and then video-called Pegasus to confirm his endorsement. Of all the things he'd done that day, talking to Pegasus had ended up being the most exhausting because the man loved hearing himself talk and no matter how many insults Seto threw at him, he just laughed and called him 'Kaiba-boy.' He knew that Seto knew that he had every intention of being a sponsor; he just wanted to drag out the meeting to get under Seto's skin, and it worked. By the time the two CEOs hung up, Seto was about ready to put his fist through the screen. He absolutely loathed the purple-haired billionaire on all sorts of levels. Pegasus had crossed a line when he'd kidnapped Mokuba, and while Yugi and Co. seemed more than willing to forgive and forget, he would never forgive Pegasus for what he'd done.

He finally left KC headquarters at a little past midnight, too weary to fully register that he had been twenty years old for the last seven minutes.

He was bone-tired, but he couldn't stop his mind from racing; something he'd always struggled with, even as a child.

He thought about different aspects of his job and what he had left to do before the tournament started and felt a momentary pang of sadness that he wouldn't be dueling this time. Even though it pained him to abstain, he simply didn't have the time it would take to prepare properly, and if he were being honest, he'd have to admit that his decision had, in part, been the result of his waning confidence in his ability to take his title back from Yugi.

The kid had proven on more than one occasion that he was an expert duelist, but more than that, the thought of facing Yugi in a duel at this point did nothing but put him on edge. He couldn't help but feel like something always stood in the way of having a fair match against the other duelist. At Duelist Kingdom he'd been far too worried about Mokuba to play his best and as a result had been forced to resort to less than aboveboard measures in order to win, in the Battle City tournament he had been constantly distracted and harassed by the Ishtar woman and hadn't been able to plan properly for his duel and had had the added stress of hosting the tournament, and then there was the time when he'd challenged Yugi to a fair and square one-on-one match and had been on the cusp of winning when they had been interrupted by some freakshow with a score to settle with Yugi and some really hardcore firepower that had destroyed his duel dome.

Yes, Seto Kaiba, though he would never admit it, had all but given up on the prospect of defeating Yugi in a duel which, as far as he was concerned, was the end of his dueling career. He and Yugi were classes unto themselves with no one talented enough to beat either one of them in a fair match which meant that playing against anyone else would be pointless.

It was disappointing, but that was life. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it sucked. Either way, he supposed that without the distraction of dueling, he could fully focus on Kaiba Corp, though the thought brought him no pleasure.

After arriving home and parking his car, Seto paused momentarily to look out the window at the moon, something he did almost every night. Looking out at the night sky always put him in mind of the expression: time and tide wait for no man, a sentiment that he found simultaneously terrifying and freeing. Terrifying because it put into perspective just how insignificant he truly was, and freeing for the very same reason. Taking the moment of meditation was enough to calm Seto down and he was ready to fall into bed after swimming one or two laps.

He unlocked the door to the house and stepped through it, prepared to mount the stairs, take off his jacket, and make his way to the pool when a voice from the shadows scared the hell out of him, causing him to visibly jump.

"Welcome home."

"Alistair!" he growled, his heart still pounding. Somehow the redhead always managed to show up at moments where Seto had let his guard down.

"How does it feel to have left your teenage years behind you?"

"Did you lurk at the top of the stairs just to try and scare me and ask me that?" Seto snapped at the same time that the spark that always seemed to flare up whenever he was around Alistair fanned itself into a small flame.

"Of course not." Alistair, never one to mince words, descended the stairs and stopped mere inches from Seto's face, his lips curved into a half smile. Seto knew that at this point he had two options: punch Alistair, or kiss him. He chose the latter, too tired to care about his decision to stay away.

As in the past, both men had far too much of a macho attitude to kiss with any kind of tenderness. Seto felt his back slam against the door as he and Alistair continued to heavily make-out, Alistair dragging his mouth along Seto's cologne-soaked neck.

Alistair slipped his hands up the front of Kaiba's black turtleneck after untucking it from his pants, his fingertips playing over the taught muscle of Kaiba's lower stomach. Seto shied away from the touch.

"Not here," he mumbled without looking into Alistair's face. He turned his back on the pilot and started to walk up the stairs. Intrigued, Alistair followed him to his bedroom, wondering vaguely if he was the first person Kaiba had ever invited there.

Kaiba's room turned out to look exactly as one would imagine it would. It was sterilely clean with not a thing out of place. The walls were white (no surprises there), there was a desktop computer embossed with the KC logo on a simple wooden desk in the corner alongside a picture of both Kaiba brothers that looked as though it had been taken at Kaiba Land and that was more or less it besides the bed. It was a four poster with red sheets and hangings.

"This isn't a museum," Seto pointed out as Alistair took a look around the room, idly shrugging off his jacket and placing it carefully over the back of his desk chair before starting to remove his gauntlets.

"Oh, then I must be in the wrong place," Alistair joked, grinning.

"You're a riot." Seto was starting to question his decision to bring Alistair here which was causing him to lash out out of uncertainty. Alistair sensed Seto's hesitation and decided to help him make a choice. He crossed the room and pressed his lips against Kaiba's, one hand cupping the other man's face, the other twining itself in his chestnut colored hair.

Seto, for his part, wavered before finally, very hesitantly, pulling Alistair closer, his hands coming to rest on Alistair's lower back.

Alistair could sense that something was different this time. The front that Kaiba usually had up, a front of indifference laced with smoldering anger, was absent. He didn't know if Kaiba was tired or what, but he liked the change; it made him seem less cold and snakelike and more human. He was also much more receptive to Alistair's advances, even going so far as to let Alistair pull his shirt over his head. It was at that point that Alistair realized that he wasn't feeling much of anything from the other man. He stopped kissing Kaiba's neck long enough to look into his face.

"Are you ok?" he asked concernedly. Seto made a derisive sound in the back of his throat.

"I'm glad to know you care," he said sarcastically, though there wasn't much power behind it. Up close and under the fluorescent light, Alistair could see that Kaiba was completely drained. He looked like he hadn't slept for days and his skin had taken on the gray tinge that Alistair's had borne for so long.

"You look terrible." Seto was taken aback.

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I'm serious; you look really tired…"

"What are you, my mother?" He wrenched himself out of Alistair's arms and pointed to the door. "If we aren't going to do this than leave."

"Am I not allowed to be worried about you?"

"You tried to run my plane into a mountain to have me killed, so no, you aren't allowed to 'be worried' about me."

"If you keep going how you're going you won't need my help; you'll kill yourself one way or another."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Seto snapped defensively, protectively covering the scars on his left wrist with his hand.

"You can't tell me that you haven't heard of people working themselves to death when from what I can tell you're a top contender."

"Why do you even care? I'm just a heartless rich kid with a bad work ethic, isn't that right? Mokuba told me about that. Think whatever you want, that's irrelevant to me. But then why pretend that you care? " Seto made the remark contemptuously, but Alistair could see the genuine uncertainty and even maybe a glimmer of hope on his face.

"I'm not pretending anything. I don't like the way you do business, and that's no secret, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you as a person."

"Why?" Seto asked flatly. "I thought you hated me."

"I did. And there are still some things about you that I really don't like, but you're a good person. Once I realized that I couldn't hate you anymore. You've saved my ass too many times for me to ignore."

"So what, you're returning the favor? Don't bother. I'm not some damsel in distress; you can't save me."

"Why can't you just accept my help? Anybody's help? It's not weak, Kaiba. I know you've been brainwashed to think that but you're wrong. Do you think I'm weak for letting you help me?" Seto regarded the man standing in front of him. He thought about how pathetic he looked when he was trapped inside his own head, how he had cried over the memory of his dead brother. But then he couldn't help but remember the determination on Alistair's face when they'd dueled, or the defiant way he verbally battled, how he had refused to let himself be intimidated by him. The man had resided in a warzone and lived. Far from being weak, he was a survivor. He was strong.

"No."

"Then let me help you. Not as a favor, as a friend."

"I don't need friends." Seto's tone was almost wistful.

"Why, because you're afraid of getting hurt? What could I possibly do to hurt you? You're invincible, remember? You're Seto Kaiba."

"I know my name, thanks," Seto snarled, his temper flaring up momentarily.

"Kaiba—," Alistair started.

"Don't," Seto's eyes flashed dangerously, "call me that." Normally being addressed by his surname didn't bother him, but every time Alistair said it, it did nothing but make him think that it wasn't him that Alistair saw standing there, but his step-father, which was something that he found he couldn't tolerate.

Alistair was at a loss.

"Ok, I won't. But listen to me: I'm not trying to 'rescue you', I don't think you need to be rescued; I just think you need to realize your own self worth."

"You're one to talk."

"I haven't done anything worthy of being proud of, not really."

"I thought you despised my company."

"I wasn't talking about Kaiba Corp," Alistair scoffed. "I was talking about Mokuba. Even though you've been awfully overbearing, you obviously did something right because he's one of the kindest people I've ever met. The fact that you singlehandedly raised him when you were still a kid yourself is pretty damn impressive. And from what I've heard, Mokuba isn't the only person you've helped out."

"And your point is? Look, I don't need self-esteem lessons from someone who wanted to jump out of an airplane."

"What is your problem?" Alistair snapped. "I warned you that if you kept pushing people away you'd regret it."

"Is that a threat?" Seto asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

"Kind of."

"What are you going to do? Leave? Go ahead. Oh wait, you might want to stick around until you get your license even though you're not even going to work for me." Alistair didn't rise to the bait.

"I told you that I wasn't going to kowtow to you like your subordinates and I meant it. You might be able to scare them and even Yugi and his friends off, but not me." He copied Seto's pose; arms crossed, eyes shining determinedly. Seto's eyes widened in surprise."Not everyone is out to get you. I know that I'm 'one to talk' as you say, and I know that I have my issues, but I'm also stubborn, as you've seen, and I'm not going to let you shake me that easily."

Seto would have been put off by how friendship speech-y what Alistair was saying was, but the difference was that when Alistair said it he believed him, he had to. Yugi and his friends had no idea who he was, but Alistair knew. Even though he'd seen Seto at his worst, at his weakest, he was still saying he wouldn't abandon him.

Since his parents' death Seto hadn't come close to trusting someone, hadn't even wanted to try, but seeing the look on Alistair's face caused an unexpected warmth in his chest telling him to believe that what he said was true.

Alistair wisely chose to remain silent and merely bear witness to Kaiba's revelation. Once Kaiba stopped looking stunned he started to laugh. Alistair was too startled to be alarmed at first, but as the brunette continued to laugh manically he started to think that he'd cracked.

"Are you alright?" he asked tentatively.

"Of course I'm not alright," Seto said between laughs. "The person who was out to kill me is telling me to trust him and giving me life advice and I believe him. It's ridiculous! Ludicrous! Crazy! It's…it's…" He faltered and without warning, a tear rolled down his cheek. "I don't know what's wrong with me," he whispered as two more tears fell from his eyes. He hastily wiped them off his face with his hand and turned his back on Alistair while he tried to compose himself.

Alistair reached out and touched his shoulder in concern.

"Don't touch me," Seto said thickly, but Alistair ignored him. He wrapped his arms around Seto's shoulders and rested his head in the hollow of his neck.

"I told you: you can't shake me that easily," Alistair said softly.

After Seto pulled himself together, Alistair let go, intending to leave, thinking Kaiba would want to be alone with his thoughts.

"Where are you going?" Seto asked after he'd turned back around.

"It's late; I need to go to bed if I want to get up before noon tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Oh." Seto thought fast. "Wait, Alistair. Stay." Alistair felt himself smiling. "Don't get confused and think that this is some lovey-dovey chick-flick thing, got it?" Alistair wiped the grin off his face and forced himself to sound gruff.

"Of course not."

The two men got ready for bed in silence, Alistair brushing his teeth with a spare toothbrush.

When it was time to actually get into the queen sized bed, Alistair thought that it would be asking a lot of Kaiba's personality to expect him to want to cuddle, and he was right, and also slightly relieved. The thought of 'Seto Kaiba' and 'cuddling' used in the same sentence would have been too weird.

"I sleep facing the wall," Seto informed his guest, breaking the silence. He pulled back the red comforter and slid under the sheets, rolling onto his side so that his back was to Alistair, who pulled the comforter up on the other side and followed suit, praying that he wouldn't have a nightmare that night. As it happened, he didn't, but he wasn't the only one prone to bad dreams.

"You softhearted little worm," Gozaburo said, deathly calm. Seto shrank back until his back was against the wall and cowered there. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out about what you did?"

"He needed the money," Seto explained shakily, putting his arms up defensively in front of himself. "I just wanted to help."

"Are you or are you not a Kaiba, boy?" Gozaburo barked at him. "A Kaiba does not give away money! We're not running a charity, we're running a business! You would do well to remember that. But since you seem to have trouble burning that little fact into your brain, I'll offer you an incentive. How much money was it that you threw away? Five hundred? I think one lash for every hundred seems pretty generous, what do you say?" Seto felt his lip tremble, but knew that if he started crying the punishment would be worse.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Y-yes sir." Gozaburo lashed out unexpectedly, catching Seto by the arm and dragging him towards the closet. Seto knew better than to fight, though he couldn't stop several tears from forming in the corners of his eyes.

"You are incompetent!" Gozaburo said coldly as he flung Seto into the narrow room. "What type of fool agrees to being beaten? You made a decision, at least have the guts to stick up for it! You are a Kaiba! We don't make mistakes. We are never wrong. Your lack of backbone has earned you five more lashes!"

Alistair was awoken in the middle of the night and wondered dimly why he wasn't sleeping on the floor. It took him a moment to remember that he was in Kaiba's bed. It didn't take him long to figure out what had woken him up either. One look at Kaiba was enough to see that he was obviously having some kind of nightmare. His face was shining with sweat and he'd thrashed around so much that he'd completely pulled the blankets off of Alistair and was tangled up in them. He did not cry out, but his eyebrows had contracted and his mouth was curved in a frown. Alistair was too startled to snap into action immediately and it wasn't until Kaiba let out a low moan that he reached over to shake him.

"Kaiba!" he whisper-yelled, jostling the other man's shoulder. "Kaiba, wake up." Seto groaned again before cracking his eyes open.

"Wha?" he rasped sleepily, looking uncomprehendingly up into Alistair's concerned face.

"You were having a nightmare," Alistair explained. "You woke me up."

"Oh." Seto quickly pieced the situation together as he began to wake up. He started to roll over to go back to sleep when he realized Alistair's hand was resting on his back. "Why are you touching me?" Alistair quickly pulled his hand away.

"I was trying to wake you up," he explained defensively.

"Whatever." Seto tried to force the image of Gozaburo leering over him with a belt back to the dark pit it had come from.

"You're welcome," Alistair said snippily. Seto rolled his eyes.

"Please. You owed me after all the times I've woken you up. Now go back to sleep."

"Not until you give me half of the comforter."

"What? Oh." Seto suddenly realized how tightly he was wrapped in the blankets. He ended up having to sit up to untangle himself.

"What were you dreaming about?" Alistair asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"None of your business. I don't ask you about your dreams, you don't ask me about mine, got it?"

"Fair enough," Alistair agreed. He had a pretty good idea who Kaiba had been dreaming about anyway.

"Now let's go back to sleep; I have to get up to go to work soon."

"No you don't; you have the day off tomorrow, remember? It's your birthday."

"Right." Seto set his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. "I'm twenty," he muttered out loud. The years certainly had flown by. It was strange to think that he'd carried the Kaiba name for exactly half his life now. Soon it would be more than half. He wondered briefly if Gozaburo would be proud of him if he could see him now. Or his parents…

Seto was fairly certain Mokuba couldn't remember their parents, but he could. The memories were faded, but still there. He could remember his ninth birthday, the last before the accident that resulted in he and Mokuba becoming orphans.

His mother had made him a chocolate cake with his name on it, and nine candles. He had no recollection of what he'd wished for that year, probably a video game, but he could remember his family singing 'Happy Birthday' and then agreeing to take him out for dinner. They had gone to some Mom and Pop diner because Seto liked the milkshakes. Seto mentally shook himself. There was no point getting sentimental over a past he could never relive.

Author's Note: This chapter highlights why I think that Seto and Alistair, as messed up as both of them are, work so well together as a pairing. Seto represents stability and rationality, whereas Alistair represents spontaneity and passion. They both have what the other is missing. And while it could be argued that Joey would work just as well, I say (that while there are amazing Puppyshipping fics), Joey could never understand and accept Seto like Alistair can, at least not as naturally. Seto would never hang out with Joey's friends or ever buy into their concept of friendship; that's not who he is, and Joey wouldn't be able to be with someone who doesn't have the same values he does. Alistair however, while he isn't nearly as introverted as Seto, would never try to force Seto to change who he is in order to be with him.